Getting old color negatives, rolled up for years, flat.

[r.reeder]

Does anyone out there in the ether know if water soaking color negatives, that have been rolled up for 35 years, in order to hang them up & let them dry flat so I can scan them, is ok to do? I've done this with B/W negatives, & have successfully gotten tightly rolled up negatives to hang dry with out the curl. But, I was concerned that color print film might have some feature that would not react kindly to a soaking in water, followed by the standard wetting agent, then hanging up to dry. I have experience with B/W processing at home, but none with color. Thanks.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Do not soak them. It removes the stabilizer.

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

Place the negatives flat between plastic sheet will some weight will slowly remove at least some of the curl.

I have used these archival storage pages to do this. http://www.freestylephoto.biz/search?q=archival+film+storage

 

[AgX]

Do not soak them. It removes the stabilizer

One can soak them in appropriate final rinse (wetting agent plus stabilizer, formaldehyde in this case).

 

[Truzi]

r.reeder, I would try Sirius' suggestion first, unless the curl is too severe. If they have been stored rolled-up, you might try reversing (rolling the other way) and storing it like that for a day, and see if it removes some curl. That way you won't have to do anything with liquids.

Just do it gingerly and loosely so you don't scratch the emulsion. I've done this with a few rolls successfully. Also, don't leave it rolled up too long or the strip will start to curl the other way. Do it in increments until it is acceptable.
They don't have to be perfectly flat when you are done, just enough to use Sirius' suggestion.

This thread has interesting potential. We have some messed-up color negatives, old family photos. Some are mine, from when I was old enough to load and expose 127 film without a problem, but not old enough to care for the negatives; much of the film is my parents', who cared about the prints, but didn't pay attention to what happened to the negatives; not sure if they are all c-41.

They have been wound, bent, left out of envelopes to get dirty, etc. I just want to clean them up, straighten them out, and store them properly; I'm not attempting any restoration (I'll leave that part to a professional if it becomes necessary).

I have the ingredients needed for the formalin-style stabilization from threads PE has posted in the past, and intend to wash and re-stabilize them at some point. I know how to be careful with this stuff, so am not worried about the chemistry. (Just because I know how to be careful doesn't mean I always will be, so don't give me any trivia that I would feel compelled to test, like lighting frozen glacial acetic acid, lol).

My first assumption is that whatever I do, I do it with water and NOT the stabilization bath itself... I just use the stabilization bath as the absolute final step, right? (In other words, don't wash in the the stabilizer.)

My second assumption is that whatever I do, I stabilize immediately after finishing, not letting it dry down or anything first, correct?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Correct on all counts.

PE

 

[r.reeder]

r.reeder, I would try Sirius' suggestion first, unless the curl is too severe. If they have been stored rolled-up, you might try reversing (rolling the other way) and storing it like that for a day, and see if it removes some curl. That way you won't have to do anything with liquids.

Just do it gingerly and loosely so you don't scratch the emulsion. I've done this with a few rolls successfully. Also, don't leave it rolled up too long or the strip will start to curl the other way. Do it in increments until it is acceptable.
They don't have to be perfectly flat when you are done, just enough to use Sirius' suggestion.

This thread has interesting potential. We have some messed-up color negatives, old family photos. Some are mine, from when I was old enough to load and expose 127 film without a problem, but not old enough to care for the negatives; much of the film is my parents', who cared about the prints, but didn't pay attention to what happened to the negatives; not sure if they are all c-41.

They have been wound, bent, left out of envelopes to get dirty, etc. I just want to clean them up, straighten them out, and store them properly; I'm not attempting any restoration (I'll leave that part to a professional if it becomes necessary).

I have the ingredients needed for the formalin-style stabilization from threads PE has posted in the past, and intend to wash and re-stabilize them at some point. I know how to be careful with this stuff, so am not worried about the chemistry. (Just because I know how to be careful doesn't mean I always will be, so don't give me any trivia that I would feel compelled to test, like lighting frozen glacial acetic acid, lol).

My first assumption is that whatever I do, I do it with water and NOT the stabilization bath itself... I just use the stabilization bath as the absolute final step, right? (In other words, don't wash in the the stabilizer.)

My second assumption is that whatever I do, I stabilize immediately after finishing, not letting it dry down or anything first, correct?

What kind of stabilizer would be best, & can it be purchased? There is no stabilizer used in B/W film processing, so this is new to me. Someone mentioned formaldehyde. After the water soak of several hours, would I just soak the film for a minute or two in formaldehyde & wetting agent, & then hang it up to dry? Thanks.

 

[Truzi]

What kind of stabilizer would be best, & can it be purchased? There is no stabilizer used in B/W film processing, so this is new to me. Someone mentioned formaldehyde. After the water soak of several hours, would I just soak the film for a minute or two in formaldehyde & wetting agent, & then hang it up to dry? Thanks.

There are better people to answer this than I, and they already have . Here are a couple threads, but there are more.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Also, I've not done it yet - it's in the theoretical stage for me.

If your film is recent enough, I've read the new (current) stabilizer should work. The thread linked above puts the cut-off date around 2000. All you would have to do is buy some stabilizer and mix it correctly.

From what I understand, older film needs the formalin (formaldehyde) stabilizer, but that it will also work with newer film. If yours are newer, it would probably be easier to buy the current stabilizer (though perhaps less fun).

I think a couple items on this page might work. Hopefully someone will correct my mistakes:
Dead Link Removed